Devotional by Carter Wheelock
I remember a scene from a movie in which a young priest was reading a Bible and suddenly laughed. Another priest said, reproachfully, "There's nothing funny in the Bible." Well, maybe it depends on what Bible you're reading. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Harper and Row, 1970) lists a few that provide an unexpected laugh, and tradition has given them special names. Here are examples:
The Adulterous Bible of 1631 says, in Exodus 20:14, "Thou shalt commit adultery." That edition was printed by the King's printers, Barker and Lucas, who were fined 300 pounds and went out of business. According to the Sin On Bible published in Ireland in 1716, Jesus said to the woman taken in adultery, "Go and sin on more." The Unrighteous Bible published in Cambridge in 1653 says in Cor. 6:9 that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom, and in Rom. 6:13 it warns "Do not yield your members as instruments of righteousness."
Then there's the Wicked Prayer Book of 1686, which quotes the Bible, saying "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, uncleanness...(etc.), and they who do such things shall inherit the kingdom. It was in the reign of Charles I that they published the Fool Bible, which says "The fool hath said in his heart, there is a God."
You can prove anything by the Bible if you choose the edition carefully. Do you want to prove that Eve wore pants? One edition of the Geneva Bible affirms that Adam and Eve "sewed fig leaves together and made themselves breeches." It should have included a picture of Eve in blue jeans. The Unrighteous Bible, mentioned above, says that the first deacons were chosen and set before the disciples (not the apostles); and according to the Judas Bible of 1611, it was Judas, not Jesus, who said "Sit ye here while I go yonder and pray."
In 1923 they published the so-called Affinity Bible, which contains a table of affinities or blood relationships telling who cannot marry whom. It says that a man may not marry his grandmother's wife. If you have faith, you don't need bug repellent: the Coverdale Bible of 1535 says clearly, in Psalms 91:15, "Thou shalt not be afraid of the bugges by night, nor the arrow that flieth by day." You guessed it--that one is called the Bug Bible. And you'll remember that Rebekah, wife of Isaac, had some young damsels who waited on her when she arose in the morning. The Camel Bible says "And Rebeka rose, and her camels."
What error would you look for in the Denial Bible published at Oxford in 1792? It says that before the cock crowed, Philip (not Peter) denied Jesus three times. A Bible printed in 1810 is what we could call the Cockney Bible, because in Matt. 13:43 it drops an H: "Whoever hath ears to ear, let him hear." The so-called Lions Bible of 1804 speaks, in Kings 8:19, of "The son that shall come forth out of thy lions." It has other interesting features: in Gal. 5:17 it has the flesh lusting after the spirit, and in Num. 25:18, where most Bibles speak of putting the murderer to death, this one puts him together.
You probably think that Revelation says "the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea." Wrong. According to a Bible of 1641, the earth passed away and "there was more sea." Right--it's the More Sea Bible . If you move over and make room on your pew for someone else to sit down, you are blessed, because the Second Geneva Bible of 1562 says "Blessed are the placemakers." There's a clumsy translation here and there: correctly, Jeremiah 8:22 asks, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" But the Douay Bible of 1609 asks "Is there no rosin in Gilead?" Two or three others of the time ask "Is there no treacle?" (In Old English "treacle" could mean "a cure-all" as well as "molasses.")
The editor of the Bible printed in Oxford in 1717 must have needed glasses: the parable of the vineyard is called the parable of the vinegar. Yep, that's the Vinegar Bible. What is there to give the Wife Hater Bible of 1810 its name? It's the verse that reads "If any man shall follow after me and hate not his father and mother...yea, and his own wife also, he cannot be my disciple." The Sting Bible was published in 1746, wherein Mark 7:35 tells about a deaf man who had a speech impediment -- he had a string on his tongue, so to speak. In this Bible Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears, and "straightway his ears were opened, and the sting of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain."
In conclusion, who was responsible for these errors? A Bible of 1702 tells the truth through a Freudian slip. In Psalms 119:161, in the correct version, the writer says he is persecuted by princes without cause. In this edition he says, "I am persecuted by printers." Yes, it's the Printers Bible.